I love chocolate. However, because of my allergies, I can't just grab any old chocolate something. So when I saw this chocolate spread from Sweet William, I couldn't believe my luck! Now this is not just any kind of chocolate spread, but chocolate spread that's gluten free, dairy free, nut free (and also not made in a factory where nuts are being processed *high five*), it's Halal, it's Kosher, it's got a low GI, it's suitable for vegans and now with 60% less sugar AND it tastes good (which is like also very important). It's got it all! It's magic! It's Australian!

Another chocolate related favourite this month, also by Sweet William, is this white chocolate bar. It tastes so delicious! (I've "accidently" eaten half of the bar in one go. Naughty me). And once again it's got the whole list checked off. Amazing... Truly amazing... (as you might understand, this month hasn't been that healthy due to good chocolate and school stress).


I must say that the colour green is ever in my favor, but this month especially. I've caught the green fever (hereby not talking hay fever *ahchoo*). Some nice green nail polishes, some nice greenish socks... (all from Hema) I've got it all. I declare green to be the colour of this summer! And pink. And brown. And yellow. And... well, this obviously deveats my point...

I don't know why but almost everytime I go to Central Station Amsterdam, I come home with a magazine I absolutely love. This month I've snatched two lovely magazines from the stand. The first one is called Entourage and is filled with all kinds of amazing (old) fashion photo's. It looks so deluxe and extravagance, maybe I should take some classes or two... The second magazine is the well known I-D magazine, but what I didn't knew was that they had an interview with Tavi Gevinson in it, so I doubled my luck! I love the pictures Petra Collins has made. The feel is quite nostallgic but also very forward in some weird way. Some highlights depicted below...


On the 9th of May a Pull&Bear shop opened in Amsterdam. Demi and I simultaneously happened to be in town and visited the store on opening day. I personally had never heard of the brand, but Demi had and told me it was Spanish. Or atleast I think that's what she told me. The store looks quite cool with bits and pieces of caravan sticked to their walls and a fake fire place. It's supposed to be homely out-doors looking or something. I quite like it. Upstairs there's a mens section and in the middle there they've put one of those Volkswagen hippie busses and filled the back with shoes you can buy. Thus conclusion, aesthetically it all looked prima donna. Demi and I both bought a tee (not the same mind you). I got this one which I think looks exactly like Jack. But my dad thinks it's a Beagle and he'll let me know his opinion everytime I wear it (basically, he makes fun of me and my tee. It's a Jack Russell I tell ya!). What do ya'll think: Jack or Beagle (if one of you says Beagle, I don't know who you are, but I will find you and I will... make you say that it looks like Jack. Threatening, I know).


This month I've revisited an old song I absolutely loved and obviously still do. The song isn't a real oldie (although, some time has passed already). Now, I might share what song it is. Obviously. Otherwise this all would be useless. Alright, the song is called The Pretender from the Foo Fighters. The lyrics, naturally, are absolutely brilliant:

I'm the voice inside your head you refuse to hear
I'm the face that you have to face mirrored in your stare
I'm what's left, I'm what's right, I'm the enemy
I'm the hand that will take you down, bring you to your knees
So who are you?

And the videoclip is so sharp and to me a perfect resemblance of the feeling I get when listening to it (a weird mixture of empowering, fight lust, insecurity and self doubt -but in a good way).

If you will be so kind, please let me know what ya'll been loving this month (or the next or whenever wherever).

Love,
Dominique

Today didn't started off that good. Namely, I'd put on a lipstick I hadn't worn for about a year and suddenly had an allergic reaction to it. This happens more often than you think, but throwing away lipstick just isn't in my nature. However, my mom forced me to (also it didn't help that my lips were swollen and really irritated and weird looking and really sort of pumped up and they felt like they we're gonna explode and tingling and thrusting and yeah... not pleasant may be a good description). Luckily I could swipe it off easily and managed throughout the day when the feeling numbed down slowly. This all came a bit inconvenient because I was about to leave for some outdoors fun. But I also managed that and had a lovely day at Paleis Het Loo in Apeldoorn. Which is basically a palace turned into a museum of some sorts. Which isn't technically outside, but they've got a garden so we're good...


Paleis Het Loo used to be a royal palace but has been open for the public eye since 1984. Het Loo contains everything you'd expect from a former royal palace: old stuff from royals. However, they've also got temporary exhibitions and I'm very excited for their newest edition "Grace Kelly: Princess & Style Icon". So my mom and I (and my dad and Jack were there too, only dogs aren't aloud so they went for a walk) stood full anticipation infront of the cassiere asking for tickets for the exhibition. She looked at us confused and said that the exhibition about Grace Kelly would be available in a week or two... I was so busy that I've disregarded the date of the opening (which, I must confess, isn't the first time that happened to me *oops*). So ya'll can probably expect a blogpost about that between the 5th of June and the 26th of October, when the exhibition is actually there. However, why waste a car journey when you can just go to other exhibitions within Het Loo, ay?! (plus, unimportantly, I needed it for an assignment for school).

This hasn't been the first time I've been to Het Loo. However, me and my mom were kind of lost when searching for the entrance. Which may sound crazy when you think of it (and look at it, frankly). But at the front there were also arrows pointing to the sides of the building, which led to a mysterious door (which we didn't trusted). So we just went for the obvious, the big door upfront. There you can at the sides enter the palace, which simultaneously made notion of the hazards an old palace withholds (so no grand entrance there...).When finally inside the building, our memory didn't let us down and we even recognized a thing or two!

The exhibition that's now on show is called "Royal Show Pieces: A Royal encounter with Dutch Design" (still there until the 29th of June). Which, as my mum recollected, also had clothes in it. Yay for clothes! However, *surprise surprise* we couldn't find the exhibition space. We did saw in the entrance hall a nice looking room with clothes spinning around and just looking awesome, but we didn't understand how to get there. Thus we just went a random way in the hope it'd turn out OK.

So we were just walking and talking and wondering where the exhibition could be and being annoyed by this big group of posh French people who stood in our way. How many times I've had to save me and my mom with the words "excusez moi" are almost unbearable. And everytime they overtook us with their unwanted company and we were again surrounded by just French people. French people everywhere! And we don't speak French and we couldn't see anything anymore and it isn't just because they're French that they're annoying, but they're annoying because they kept circling around us which made us a bit anxious. But everything turned out fine. We just took a sprint, left some rooms unseen, and came far ahead of them (until we went to the museum shop, where they all were gathered. The horror!!).


Now we were about midway through (baring in mind that we've skipped like 75% of the rooms), we were still wondering where the f that exhibition could be. My mom thus took it upon her to ask it to one of the security guards. Well, ladies and gentlemen, what had appeared to be in our eyes just a re-do of some rooms, happened to be part of the exhibition. They've sort of woven this temporary exhibition between the permanent exhibition. Which is 1) quite clever and 2) unnoticeable. Yes, you think that thing looks quite modern compared to that other thing, but it isn't immediately like "wow omg that's so modern" (except than in the room where we were, where dresses of Jan Taminiau are displayed, which made my mum ask about where the hell the exhibition now was and such. On a side note: nice dresses. Well done Jan). Apparently we, at that point, already had crossed three rooms which contained stuff from the exhibition. So there's some food for thought. Also, the security guard pointed out to us, that you can distinct those rooms from the others because of the carpets. The carpets, namely, are an exact replica of the ceiling painting in that room (which I find quite wondrous). And on top of that, the special rooms shall we call it also had an according smell spread around (which was really only noticable in the "flower room" which really reeked of flowers). And and and each special room had appropiate music playing in the background. After realizing all that, a lot made more sense, as you might can imagine. Not long after our breakthrough we arrived at the room we thought was the beginning of the exhibition but was actually the end and we felt a mixture of fun and relieve. It wasn't what we'd expected it to be (which can be a good thing too sometimes). To rest our little heads, we went to the garden for some outdoors fun (as said in the opening of this post. See! Outdoors fun! Fun! Fun! Fun!). Now look at some pictures of my face (awful, innit).



Then it was time to reunite with my dad and Jack and we all drove off into the sunset. Not really though, it was only afternoon. So instead we went for a drink before we headed home. Quite the adventure indeed. I hope your weekend was as good as mine! (despite that being the only fun thing I've done this weekend because all I've been doing is schoolwork).

Love,
Dominique